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Friday, July 8, 2016

NUBLITZ! demo army lists and pics

The 2016 update to the Heavy Gear rules came out this past weekend. While I didn't have a chance to go over the actual rules in any detail, I did take a look at the army construction chapters. One major change is that the number of different UAs has been significantly reduced. I'm glad to see this seeing as how I both privately (prior to) and publicly (post release) advocated strongly for that unsuccessfully back in 2013/2014. With this latest slimmed down army organization, I decided to see if what I could do with my painted Blitz scale models and eventually my new Rafm scale collection.

A few years back when I was trying to demo and drum up support for the game, a player commented after an intro game while skimming through my rulebook that he was surprised to see more than just gears in Heavy Gear. At first I was perplexed at the comment until I took a look at my collection at that time (100% gears) as well as the name and cover art of all the books. Since then, I made it a point to include more than just gears in my forces despite my personal interests, especially in the forces I bring to demo. Gears are still the overall main focus of my collection but not an exclusive one. Additionally, I wanted to make sure I brought models that will use a variety of weapons, deployments, stats, and special rules instead of just frontline commandos backed up by backfield bruisers (my initial southern army). If those weren't enough restrictions, space was also limited in my carrying case so all three forces had to fit in mostly a single foam tray. From my collection, here are the various lists I came up with at 132pts (+-1pt) each after evicting some Robotech models from their foam slots!

Starting with the North, we have a Fire Support squad of two Grizzlies (including the CGL) and two destroyer Jaguars. The Jaguars belong honestly more in an old time strike squad but the low tech but devastating explosive brute force weapons can also fit here in the Fire Support squad . They'll likely be deployed up on the front lines guarding the 5th member of the squad, a support unit Cheetah. The Cheetah recon gear is there to provide FO as well as some ECM support for the squad. The second squad is a high tech strike squad of two Arrow missile Jaguars and two laser sniper Flash Jaguars led by a Cheetah. To round out the three activations, I have a platoon of four anti-tank infantry squads. With this force, I've got a representation of indirect fire (guided and normal), some advanced weapons like lasers, infantry and their unique rules, and some solid electronic warfare.

Opposing them is my Southern Republic gear regiment. I went with extremes here in that I took both the most basic gear squad (GP) along with two of the most elite options in that army. The five Jager GP squad includes some grenade launchers/LAC combo rifles as well as light bazookas and are led by a command Jager. This was important to me as I didn't have any "trooper" class gears like the hunter in my northern force. Backing them up is a strike squad of two bruiser King Cobras with their haywire damage causing particle accelerators. Finally, we have a special forces stealth squad of two three various mambas and a chameleon recon gear. This squad utilizes both the stealth and paratrooper rules potentially in a game. I'm still a little bit hesitant to include the stealth squad though as the previous Blitz stealth rules just made the game not fun when used.

Rounding out the final force is my Nucoal tank regiment. The standard 132pt force consists of two squadrons of missile and laser armed Fusilier Javelin hovertanks backed up by a pair of larger, tougher (but slower and more expensive!) Longfang Hetairoi hovertanks. This covers the previously unused hover mode movement as well as multiaction larger vehicles. For smaller games, I've included two support squad hover gears (Chasseur mk2 gunners) to add a bit of granularity to potential squads at lower point totals.

With these three armies, I've got a variety of weapons represented as well as all but one of the major classes of the titular gears. Flanking, airdrop, and normal deployment is represented along with special categories of rules like stealth and electronic warfare. Finally, nongears are shown as both infantry as well as tanks are included. I attempted to include support options like turrets, conventional tanks, and aircraft alternatively in the southern force as well as an APC in the north but neither the points nor the remaining available foam slots worked out. I'm also missing a strider in a list as well. I had initially planned to use my Rafm Kodiak as a blitz gearstrider but there are lingering questions about his size relative to the orginal model on top of the fact that couldn't fit in the case without removing more (necessary) robotech demo models. I may eventually revisit that decision though in the future though. Next up will be my Robotech demo lists and models that I keep in the same case.